Video: Melee is Sick
The community that has survived 20 years and won’t die.
Video by Holden Predmore
Super Smash Brothers Melee has been one of the top competitive fighting games since its creation in the early 2000s and maintains that reputation today. From locals to the biggest stages in esports, Melee is still a thriving community. This video takes a look at the community at WWU, and the bonds that are formed there.
Transcript
00;00;10;16–00;00;24;15
Trevor “Tjen” Born: Melee is like, it’s one of those one of those games that always keeps giving. You know, I feel like there’s always something to work on, something to improve. It’s fast and it’s fun. It’s fun to move around in.
00;00;25;09–00;00;51;28
Eli “Graves” Graves: It’s a game that you can get to the highest level of without, like any outside assistance. It’s just you learning the game. It’s like a closed skill where if you’re the best at it, you can go to a tournament with the best people in the world, and if you’re good enough, you’ll just win. And there’s like no teams. You don’t have to be sponsored by anyone. You can just do it and you’re not dependent on anyone else. It’s just your own journey.
00;00;52;19–00;01;07;01
Reid “Hard Reid” Morin: It’s such a complex game to like, play not consciously. Like, the game is so fast that you have to act solely on instinct a lot of the time, and I think that there’s a lot of merit and appeal in that. There’s nothing else quite like it.
00;01;08;08–00;01;19;26
Trevor “Tjen” Born: The community had its origins in like grassroot tournaments and locals and going and just meeting other people and just sitting across from them and just sharing something you both enjoy.
00;01;21;09–00;01;41;11
Eli “Graves” Graves: It brings me together with the Western community and everyone around here as well, which I value a lot. You know, there’s not many things that can bring so many people together for so long, like Melee has. There’s so much depth to the game that you can just keep talking about it, keep diving deeper into the game for 20 years, it’s amazing.
00;01;43;02–00;02;05;25
Reid “Hard Reid” Morin: The skill ceiling is just impossibly high and that there’s a lot of there’s a lot of appeal and just doing cool stuff and like breaking the game against somebody. I don’t think there will ever be something as good as this, I think with corporatization and how video games aren’t made with passion, but with like purely for profit motivations, like it’s no longer a bunch of sweaty nerds sitting around trying to make Halo 1.
00;02;07;06–00;02;51;03
Trevor “Tjen” Born: I don’t think there will ever be a game like Melee like because Melee is a culmination of like over 20 years of just like community building. And even if you get a game and you replicate its mechanics like one to one, you’ll never have the community that Melee has, and the history, there are historians on YouTube and stuff doing like blogs of storylines and of Melee tournament matches that happened 15 years ago. And I don’t know. That’s- that’s something that’s really special. What draws me in about that like Melee community is like always being able to just sit down with whoever you’re playing with and just instantly having something in common with them.
00;02;52;03–00;03;03;24
Eli “Graves” Graves: It’s amazing to see people who I’ve known for a couple of years now, and it’s just like having said stuff to them and then they like implementing their game plan like we talk about it and stuff. It’s a super neat experience.
00;03;05;03–00;03;14;23
Trevor “Tjen” Born:There’s always a sense of common ground in enjoying the game. And that’s something that’s really special no matter what game it is.
00;03;15;21–00;03;28;09
Eli “Graves” Graves: I love to watch fosw, just like the lower ranked players who are improving really quickly. It’s more fun than winning yourself. I wouldn’t come to this if I didn’t get to watch other people, you know.
00;03;29;06–00;03;42;06
Reid “Hard Reid” Morin: It’s always been a grassroots thing. There’s somewhat of an appeal to pass the torch and keep the game alive. It is like, our game, it’s not like just Nintendo made this thing.
00;03;43;01–00;04;02;18
Eli “Graves” Graves: And then just having a sense of like home compared to if I didn’t have this, it would have been… more isolating where I wouldn’t have met Peter, one of my roommates and the Melee community at Western is… it’s closer than people think. I think… there’s so many unique characters.
00;04;04;01–00;04;34;02
Trevor “Tjen” Born: The Bellingham community was my first introduction into Melee and it was honestly, really good and it’s probably a big reason why I’m continuing to play. I get to know the people week in and week out and everyone like, it’s like the cheers line, “sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name,” it’s nice. I like to be known and to know others, and it means a lot to a lot of people.
00;04;34;19–00;04;38;24
Reid “Hard Reid” Morin: I think and I hope that the game will still be played 20 years from now. I really do.
00;04;40;12–00;04;41;01
Eli “Graves” Graves: Yeah, Melee is Sick